What's Wrong with the United Nations and How to Fix it

by Thomas G. Weiss, Brian Urquhart (Foreword by)

Overview

Six decades after its establishment, the United Nations and its system of related agencies and programs are perpetually in crisis. While the twentieth century's world wars gave rise to ground-breaking efforts at international organization in 1919 and 1945, today's UN is ill-equipped to deal with contemporary challenges to world order. Neither the end of the Cold War nor the aftermath of 9/11 has led to the "next generation" of multilateral institutions.

But what exactly is wrong with the UN, and how can we fix it? Is it possible to retrofit the world body? In his succinct and hard-hitting analysis, Thomas G. Weiss takes a diagnose-and-cure approach to the world organization's inherent difficulties. In the first half of the book, he considers: the problems of international leadership and decision making in a world of self-interested states; the diplomatic difficulties caused by the artificial divisions between the industrialized North and the global South; the structural problems of managing the UN's many overlapping jurisdictions, agencies, and bodies; and the challenges of bureaucracy and leadership. The second half shows how to mitigate these maladies and points the way to a world in which the UN's institutional ills might be "cured." His remedies are not based on pious hopes of a miracle cure for the UN, but rather on specific and encouraging examples that could be replicated. With considered optimism and in contrast to received wisdom, Weiss contends that substantial change in intergovernmental institutions is plausible and possible.

The new and expanded second edition of this well-regarded and indispensable book will continue to spark debate amongst students, scholars, and policymakers concerned with international politics, as well as anyone genuinely interested in the future of the United Nations and multilateral cooperation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780745661469
Publisher:	Polity Press
Publication date:	05/20/2013
Series:	What's Wrong?
Sold by:	JOHN WILEY & SONS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Thomas G. Weiss is Presidential Professor at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center and Director of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies.

Table of Contents

About the Author viii

Foreword by Sir Brian Urquhart x

Acknowledgments xiii

List of Figures and Tables xvi

List of Abbreviations xviii

Introduction 1

Part One: Diagnosing the Ills

1 Westphalia, Alive But Not Well 19

2 North–South Theater 50

3 The Feudal System, or Dysfunctional Family 73

4 Overwhelming Bureaucracy and Underwhelming Leadership 111

Part Two: Palliatives if Not Cures

5 Redefining National Interests 133

6 Moving Beyond the North–South Divide 160

7 Truly Delivering as One 180

8 Reinvigorating the International Civil Service 198

Conclusion: What’s Next? 223

Selected Readings 242

Notes 246

Index 279

Editorial Reviews

"Alas, Thomas Weiss has written a very good book - he makes clear how badly the UN is broken."
Economic and Political Weekly

"By any standard, this is a work of unusual ambition, scope, and insight. Only Tom Weiss, one of the UN’s most prolific and experienced observers, could so adroitly capture the world body’s perils and promise with such a winning combination of clarity, rigor, and wisdom."
Edward C. Luck, Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General

"A comprehensive and extremely thoughtful analysis by the leading scholar of the UN in the United States, this should be on the required reading list for the US president, and the leaders of other nations as well."
Craig N. Murphy, Wellesley College and University of Massachusetts Boston

“This is a very timely book, given the broad spectrum of growing difficulties facing the international system and the United Nations. It provides an analytically powerful and empirically rich account of a UN in crisis, followed by a range of sensible suggestions to place the world organization on a more sound footing in its address of deepening challenges. It speaks to issues of profound scholarly and policy relevance in a way that is eminently accessible to a wide range of readers.
S. Neil MacFarlane, St Anne’s College, University of Oxford

From the Publisher